Dewy's Adventure Dev. Diary #1

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The creator of Elebits takes us through his new game with fresh details, screenshots and artwork.

By Matt Casamassina

Publisher Konami readied the critical sleeper Elebits in time for Wii's launch window. Now, the team that worked on the innovative game is prepping its latest project, Dewy's Adventure, a colorful and cute platformer with some very unique control mechanics. Below, director Shingo Mukaitoge talks about the development process in the first of three diaries. We've also included new screenshots and artwork.

Hi, everyone, I'm glad to be back here on IGN.com again. This is Shingo Mukaitoge from Konami Digital Entertainment, Co., Ltd. Remember me from my first game on the Nintendo Wii system, Elebits? Hope all of you have enjoyed that game so far. This time, I'm back again with my latest work, Dewy's Adventure for the Wii. The game development is finally done and I'm here to present what the game is all about. Let me unfold some of the interesting background stories in this developer's diary planned in three volumes starting today. So please stick around to read all three. I'm sure most of you are surprised that Dewy's Adventure is ready to ship so soon after Elebits, which launched last fall. Actually, Dewy's Adventure was done at the same time Elebits was created and because we spent one additional year, we were able to enhance a lot of the game parts, including graphic enhancement. On top of that, we also wanted to spend more time focusing on the puzzle solving game system to give it more depth.

Our basic concept for Dewy's Adventure came from the idea of rolling a droplet of water (Dewy) around an environment while using the Wii Remote. Tilting the controller can be seen in any other games, but with ours, we added more to it - manipulating temperature. Gamers take the role of Dewy, and change his form from a normal water droplet to other formats such as ice and mist by pressing + Pads. Gamers explore the adventurous game world by solving puzzles and changing Dewy's form according to the situation. When Dewy is in water droplet form, he is fairly easy to control, but he's also sensitive to enemy's attacks at the same time. On the other hand, Dewy in ice form is more challenging to control because the environment becomes slippery -- but he can perform stronger attacks on enemies. Dewy in mist form has less impact on the game landscape because he floats in the air. He cannot move around on his own will, and he is reliant on where the wind blows him for movement. But the biggest benefit of the mist form is that he can generate thunderbolts, which perform strong attacks on enemies. Manipulating temperature does change Dewy's form but it also affects the entire game environment. Utilizing and changing the format of the environment is the key to the game. For example, if Dewy was in droplet form and wanted to cross a pond of water, he would simply dissipate into the water and drown. If you lower the temperature in the game world, the pond turns to ice and Dewy can easily cross over the pond in an ice form.

In other cases, there's a gimmick area where you need to tilt the Wii Remote. If you tilt it a certain way and freeze the environment, the map will become accessible as well. In the latter half of the game, the player must combine a couple of skills - tilting the Wii Remote and manipulating the temperature in the game. Actually, there's something else aside from temperature that effects the environment. If you shake the Wii Remote horizontally, an earthquake can be triggered. If shake it vertically, you can generate wind. These elements can be used for puzzle solving but they can also be applied against some enemies. I would say the best part of the game is that the player can actually take control of nature freely inside the game world. The ultimate goal of the game is to defeat the evil and ugly Don Hedron, the head of the underworld who polluted the world. In order to defeat him, players will take control of Dewy and defeat boss enemies on each stage as well as collect the seven fruits or "Fruits of Seven Colors." One of the missions is to see the real ending after Dom Hedron is defeated, but there is more to it that I recommend for replay value. In each stage, there are fellow friends called "Eau," trapped in certain areas. Once you release them all, your mission is completed, but there's another way of playing this. One way is to play the Time Record mission where the player is required to release as many Eaus in the game as possible. Aside from that, there are a lot of hidden items and collectable elements which also provide great replay value. We hope everyone will enjoy the many items we included in the game.

Talking about the game world, we strove to make it very fantasy-like and heart warming with a story-book atmosphere. Since we've gained skills from making games for the Wii, we have been able to enhance the graphics with Dewy as well as visualize the game world from an original concept. In the beginning of the game, illustration is used to describe the back story and history. You may recognize the art style. In fact, a piece of art from Dewys Adventure was recently selected as part of the "2007 Into the Pixel" gallery show competition. The piece is called "Illustrated Scroll" and drawn by our talented designer, Shigechy. It was displayed at E3 2007 in Santa Monica this past July and will also be displayed at the E for All show at the Los Angeles Convention Center in October. So, please come and see the heart warming art. (http://www.intothepixel.com/). On the music front, I am very happy about the outcome of BGM and sound effects in the game. They really match the world of Dewy and the theme song has some relevance to the story. You hear a lot of Dewy and Eaus' voice variation, so gamers will immediately get drawn to the happy party atmosphere of the the gameplay. Dewy's Adventure should meet your expectation on every aspect. So please look forward to further news and information on the game. In the mean time, please continue enjoying Elebits!